It is practiced in a DVD system or a game video system to determine the story development of the content by commands or actions on the part of the viewer (users).
In the DVD system, there are provided a parental lock function of removing e.g., a tyrannous scene from the presented content by level values preset by the viewer and a multi-angle function enabling the viewer to selectively view a picture of a desired angle in the case of a picture of a concert or sports.
Specifically, the parental lock function reproduces one of concatenations of scenes or shots, as the content, provided from one viewer level to another, while the multi-angle function enables the viewer to switch the pictures recorded with plural camera angles as he or she desires.
In a video game system, story development is determined and the game progresses responsive to the player's operations.
For observing or investigating into the reaction or evaluation of the viewer (audience) to a motion picture or a TV (television) content, or the content recorded on a recording medium, such as DVD, such a method is used in which the viewer's expressions or behavior, such as laughter or surprise, is observed in a preview, in the case of, for example, a motion picture, or such a method is also used in which the impression or opinion of the viewer is asked by a questionnaire. In the case of a TV program, the audience share (audience share) is searched from one time zone to another, by for example an audience share search machine to analyze the viewer's liking. As for the content recorded on the recording medium, such a method is used in which its sale is searched on the date/time basis or on the sale territory or area basis and the results are summed together.
In the above-described conventional content presentation controlling method, simply an image is selected and the story development of the content is changed, while the impression or evaluation as intended by the content supplier (creator) cannot be afforded to the viewer. For example, if the viewer is not interested in the presented content as expected by the content creator, content presentation cannot be controlled such as to arouse the viewer's interest.